[🇧🇩] ISKCON and its activities in Bangladesh

[Bilal9]

Two cases filed over killing of Ctg lawyer​

His father sues 31 for murder; brother files case against 115 including 70 lawyers, 2 journos

Saiful Islam Alif. Photo: Collected

Father of lawyer Saiful Islam Alif, who was hacked to death during Tuesday's violence on the Chattogram court premises, yesterday filed a murder case against 31 named and 10 to 15 unidentified others.

Jamal Uddin lodged the case with Kotwali Police Station, Kazi Tarek Aziz, ADC (public relations) of the Chattogram Metropolitan Police, told The Daily Star.

Most of the accused are the dwellers of Sebak Colony in the Bundle Road area of the port city, the ADC said. So far, nine people were arrested in connection with the killing after scrutinising CCTV footage, he added.

According to the case statement, the attackers -- some named in the FIR -- armed with weapons such as machetes, tridents, and cleavers -- carried out a premeditated attack on Saiful while chanting slogans in favour for former ISKCON leader Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, who was arrested in a sedition case. Saiful was attacked on his way home.

The statement claimed that individuals affiliated with political organisations, including Chhatra League, Jubo League, and Awami League, either directly or indirectly instigated the murder.

It also mentioned that the plaintiff came to know that from Saiful's colleagues and local sources following his death.

On Tuesday, police, lawyers, and followers of Chinmoy, also spokesperson for Sammilita Sanatani Jagaran Jote, clashed when the followers blocked a prison van after a Chattogram court sent the former ISKCON leader to jail in a sedition case filed over disrespecting the national flag.

Chandan Das, a key accused in the murder case, was seen wearing a helmet with an orange T-shirt and a black pair of pants. He was carrying a sharp weapon and was seen hacking Saiful in the CCTV footage, said police.

Meanwhile, Saiful's brother Khan-e-Alam yesterday lodged another case accusing 115 people, including two local journalists of Chattogram, for attacking lawyers, vandalism, and exploding crude bombs on the court premises on Tuesday.

Among the accused, 70 are lawyers and two are journalists. Besides, 400-500 unidentified were sued under the Explosive Substances Act.

With the two new cases, a total of five cases have so far been lodged with Kotwali Police Station over the violence and killing.

Court sources said senior lawyer and former president of Mahanagar Puja Udjapan Parishad Chandan Kumar Talukdar, Bangladesh Hindu-Bouddha-Christian Oikya Parishad General Secretary of Chattogram unit lawyer Nitai Prashad Ghosh, Mahanagar Puja Udjapan Parishad acting secretary lawyer Nikhil Kumar Nath, lawyers Chandan Das, Rubel Paul, Suman Achharya, and Ashirbad Kumar Biswas are among the accused.

Sukhlal Das, former secretary of Chattogram Press Club and senior reporter of Dainik Azadi, and Ayan Sharma, adviser to local daily Chattogram Pratidin, were also sued in the case, the sources added.

Denying the allegation, lawyer Nikhil told journalists that slain lawyer Saiful was their colleague and brother. Those who murdered him must be punished. But the matter of sorrow is that 70 of the 115 accused are lawyers. All are members of Bijoya Sammilan Parishad, a platform of Hindu community lawyers in Chattogram.

"No lawyers were involved in any kind of vandalism or attacks," he claimed.

Journalist Sukhlal also dismissed the allegation brought against him.

Police also filed three cases against 79 named individuals and 1,400 unknown others over the assault, vandalism, and obstruction of police in performing their duties during Tuesday's clash.

Authorities have arrested 34 people, including nine suspects linked to Saiful's murder. The nine were identified after scrutinising the CCTV footage, according to police.

 

[Sharma Ji]

Nothing of such nature shall be done.

Bangladeshis AFAIK are not into desecrating minority places of worship.

That is not how Bangladesh as a nation operates. There may be stray incidents of political revenge on Hindu Awami Leaguers, but that's about it.

However religious leaders like Chinmoy from ISKCON as an entity who get into killings, unrest and other unlawful activities will be arrested and sentenced.

A lawful nation cannot tolerate unlawful activities.

ISKCON Bangladesh already fired Chinmoy as a figurehead, they are distancing themselves against Chinmoy.

PBI (Police Bureau of Investigation) is also looking at how Chinmoy's frozen bank account had 14 crore Taka deposited only a few weeks ago and where it came from.

ya, but I was saying

if you wanna get rid of them , that's also cool

Undertaker tombstome piledriver karo, game over

establish the caliphate

 

[Bilal9]

ya, but I was saying

if you wanna get rid of them , that's also cool

Undertaker tombstome piledriver karo, game over

establish the caliphate

What nonsense ?!?

Is Hindu or Muslim written on your forehead? One is free to worship whomever they like in Bangladesh.

Obviously you have never been to Bangladesh - you don't know our culture. It is nothing like India at present.

So many of our friends have multi-religious parents, they are free to chose whichever religion they like.

Bangladeshi Hindus are our own brothers and sisters, they would prefer to be dead before they went to India.

Bangladesh is their own country - why would they leave?

You need to visit Bangladesh someday so you can see what you don't know.

The only people attacking temples in Bangladesh are Awami Leaguers - out to cause trouble (some on Indian instigation as is being proven in a few cases).

 

[Bilal9]

Two South Asian Neighbors, Once Friendly, Are Now at Bitter Odds​

India and Bangladesh have traded angry accusations about Bangladesh’s Hindu minority.

Two South Asian Neighbors, Once Friendly, Are Now at Bitter Odds

India and Bangladesh have traded angry accusations about Bangladesh’s Hindu minority.

www.nytimes.com

Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Hindu leader in Bangladesh, has been accused of sedition under a colonial-era law. Credit...Reuters

Saif Hasnat and Anupreeta Das reported from Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Mujib Mashal from New Delhi.
Nov. 28, 2024

Months of simmering tension between India and Bangladesh erupted into the open this week, as the once-friendly neighbors exchanged angry accusations after the arrest of a Hindu priest in Bangladesh on charges of sedition.

In August, Sheikh Hasina, an ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, was toppled as Bangladesh’s leader by a popular uprising. She fled to India, and her continued presence there has strained relations between the interim government in Bangladesh and Mr. Modi’s government in New Delhi.

The caretaker administration in Bangladesh, led by the 84-year-old Nobel Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, has expressed concern that Ms. Hasina is plotting a return to power from India. The interim Bangladeshi leaders have also accused India of exaggerating attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh to score political points at home.

The latest flashpoint was the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Hindu monk in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority country where Hindus make up less than 10 percent of a population of 170 million.

In the past, Mr. Das was associated with an influential global Hindu organization, the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, also known as ISKCON or the Hare Krishna Society.

A court in the Bangladeshi city of Chattogram sent him to pretrial detention under a colonial-era sedition law. His arrest came after a local politician complained that Mr. Das had disrespected the Bangladeshi flag by raising it lower than a saffron-color flag — a symbol of Hinduism — at a rally calling for an end to persecution of Hindus.

The events took a deadly turn when the monk’s supporters surrounded the court. As the security forces struggled to control the situation, a Muslim lawyer was hacked to death, police officials said. The killing was followed by reports of attacks and intimidation in Hindu neighborhoods.

It remains unclear who killed the lawyer. The police have arrested more than 20 people over the violence. The city’s lawyers have gone on strike to protest the killing.

In a statement, India’s Foreign Ministry said it was unfortunate that “a religious leader presenting legitimate demands through peaceful gatherings” was facing legal trouble while extremists behind attacks against minorities, including “desecration of deities and temples,” remained free.

The chapter of Mr. Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party in the Indian state of West Bengal, which borders Bangladesh, has threatened to blockade the border if the monk is not released.

Bangladesh’s Hindus have long faced prejudice and persecution, and their numbers have shrunk in the face of growing intolerance and rising Islamist militancy.

Ms. Hasina ran a police state that coordinated closely with India and kept a lid on some of the extremist elements who have come out in the open since her fall. But deadly attacks against Hindus took place during her reign as well.

Officials in Mr. Yunus’s interim government have promised equal protection for all Bangladeshis. They have said that India has turned the plight of Bangladesh’s Hindu minority into an emotional political ploy to undermine the movement that toppled New Delhi’s favored leader, Ms. Hasina.

The officials point to an unabated barrage of exaggeration and disinformation emanating from India. Right-wing social media accounts and news media loyal to the Indian government often use terms like genocide to describe the widespread violence that left hundreds of people dead following Ms. Hasina’s ouster, though Hindu leaders in Bangladesh said that only a few were from their community.

In an interview with The New York Times last week, Mr. Yunus acknowledged that the relationship with Bangladesh’s giant neighbor was strained. He listed India’s protection of Ms. Hasina and what he said was “propaganda” from India painting his government as overrun by extremists as factors aggravating relations.

“She is in India. She keeps talking. That’s a bit destabilizing for the whole country,” he said. “And we try to draw attention to the Indian government that this is not fair. You are giving ground to somebody who was thrown out from Bangladesh, and you’re giving her a voice.”

Mr. Yunus said that India was “trying to project” an image that Bangladesh under him was becoming “like Afghanistan.” That, he said, was making the already difficult task of charting a new course for his country even harder.

“If you destabilize Bangladesh,” he said, “you destabilize yourself — because these elements of destabilization will spill over everywhere, all around us.”

But analysts said that Mr. Yunus’s government had not helped itself by jailing the monk under a colonial-era law that Ms. Hasina had used to crush dissent.

Some of her worst practices, such as mass cases against opposition members, have continued.

“Terms like ‘sedition’ and ‘conspiracy to destabilize the situation’ are being used, which we have seen before,” said Nur Khan Liton, an adviser to Bangladesh’s Human Rights Support Society, a watchdog.

Sarjis Alam, a leader of the student protests that toppled Ms. Hasina, called for a ban on ISKCON in Bangladesh, labeling it an “extremist organization” that was aligning with India to “plot against us.”

ISKCON’s Bangladesh leaders said the group was law-abiding and expressed sadness at the death of the Muslim lawyer outside the courthouse. They have distanced themselves from Mr. Das after an initial statement of support.

 

[Sharma Ji]

What nonsense ?!?

Is Hindu or Muslim written on your forehead? One is free to worship whomever they like in Bangladesh.

Obviously you have never been to Bangladesh - you don't know our culture. It is nothing like India at present.

So many of our friends have multi-religious parents, they are free to chose whichever religion they like.

Bangladeshi Hindus are our own brothers and sisters, they would prefer to be dead before they went to India.

Bangladesh is their own country - why would they leave?

You need to visit Bangladesh someday so you can see what you don't know.

fine, keep them.

just be nice, poor vegetarian dharmis

son't become like Insanity in Iraq and Syria now

 

[Bilal9]

Bangladeshi court denies bail to Hindu leader who led rallies for minority protection

A prominent Bangladeshi Hindu leader who has been leading rallies demanding security for Hindus in the overwhelmingly Muslim nation has been ordered detained on charges of sedition

abcnews.go.com

 

[Bilal9]

fine, keep them.

just be nice, poor vegetarian dharmis

son't become like Insanity in Iraq and Syria now

You are out of your mind bud.

Bangladesh is nothing like Iraq or Syria.

And not all Hindus are vegetarian, some even consume goat meat and chicken on regular basis.

This love for protection of cows is less than a few hundred years old in India.

In any case - this is off topic, I digress.

 

[Bilal9]

Never mind the fact that India issuing instructions to a sovereign foreign govt. is tantamount to involving India in their internal affairs...but these days Indian MEA does it anyways. And that the Indian MEA and moreover, Indian Godi media is defending a child-molester just because he is Hindu.
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ISKCON Suspended Bangladeshi Hindu Leader, Restricted Contact With Minors: Report​

Meanwhile, the MEA said that it expected the Bangladeshi legal system to deal with “cases against individuals” in a “in a just, fair and transparent manner”.

November 2024 Archives

The Wire

cms.thewire.in

New Delhi: Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, the Hindu religious leader at the centre of a contentious sedition case in Bangladesh, remains suspended from ISKCON and was barred from having contact with minors and holding kirtans, as per a report.

The Bangla Outlook news outlet reported that the international child protection office at ISKCON, which stands for the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, suspended Chinmoy Krishna in October last year and also restricted him from participating in public worship, among other things.

ISKCON child protection office director Kamalesh Krishna Das told Bangla Outlook that “due to the nature of the allegations, the suspension was necessary to facilitate the investigation”.

Das did not specify the allegations against Chinmoy Krishna, but ISKCON Bangladesh officials said at a press conference in Dhaka on Thursday (November 28) that he had been ‘expelled’ and alleged that he contravened orders to refrain from participating in the organisation’s activities after children made misconduct allegations against him, as per Prothom Alo.

The officials also said ISKCON would not bear responsibility over Chinmoy Krishna’s statements or speeches.

Progress in the investigation against Chinmoy Krishna “has been delayed by certain challenges, including his level of cooperation”, Bangla Outlook quoted Das as alleging.

On Friday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said of Chinmoy Krishna’s arrest earlier this week that it expected the legal system in Bangladesh would deal with “cases against individuals” in a “in a just, fair and transparent manner” that respects their legal rights and those of “all those who are concerned”.

It also noted that ISKCON was a “globally well-regarded organisation with a strong record of social service”.

The MEA also registered concern “at the surge of extremist rhetoric” as well as the “increasing incidents of violence and provocation” against religious minorities in the country, adding to say that these developments could not be dismissed as “media exaggerations”.

Chinmoy Krishna was arrested in Dhaka on November 25 and ordered detained on sedition charges by a Chattogram court the next day.

His supporters gathered around the police van transporting him to jail, following which clashes erupted between them and police.

A Muslim lawyer identified as a prosecutor was killed amid the violence.

The charges allege that Chinmoy Krishna and others last month instigated a crowd to replace a Bangladeshi flag in Chattogram hoisted on the day former premier Sheikh Hasina fled the country with a saffron-coloured one of ISKCON’s, Prothom Alo reported.

The MEA, which previously issued a statement expressing “deep concern” at his detainment – to Dhaka’s chagrin – said on Friday that New Delhi had “consistently and strongly raised with the Bangladesh government the threats and targeted attacks on Hindus and other minorities”.

“Our position on the matter is clear – the interim government must live up to its responsibility of protecting all minorities,” ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at the weekly media briefing.

Its references to “media exaggerations” follow statements from the interim government in Dhaka that reports of attacks on religious minorities in Bangladesh after Hasina’s ouster were being “exaggerated” in Indian circles.

External affairs minister S. Jaishankar said in a written statement in parliament on Friday that the Indian government had noted reports of violence against Hindus and attacks on temples occurring in Bangladesh around the time of Hasina’s ouster as well as during Durga Puja.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry issued a statement on Friday “strongly condemn[ing]” the burning in effigy by Hindu protesters of interim chief adviser Muhammad Yunus outside the country’s deputy high commission in Kolkata on Thursday.

It also condemned what it said was the burning of the Bangladeshi flag at the deputy high commission.

“Although the situation seems to be in control at the moment, there is a prevailing sense of insecurity among all the members of the deputy high commission,” the Bangladeshi foreign ministry said.